1 日落西山霞飛嶺 The sun setting upon the hills; fiery clouds soaring past the peaks,
2 少時無功今刻病 Youth has no achievement but now aged - besotted with illness.
3 一世霧水人間夢 A lifetime of befuddlement in a mortal’s dream,
4 莫道不慕仙子命 Speak not that no one envy the lives of immortals.
1 The setting sun represents old age. The mountain peaks represent the barrier to life and death. 霞 means rosy clouds of sunrise or sunset. I chose “fiery” is a better word choice than “rosiness of youth”.
2 Passing the imperial examination for one to escape the lower rungs are dreams of the countless throughout Chinese society.
3 霧水 figuratively, “fog and water” means “can’t see clearly”. This line talks as if the poet was a banished immortal as punishment to suffer the ravages of mortality and realizes that a mortal’s life is but a dream.
4 This line implies that the banished immortal had realized the error of his ways in that it is good to be a mortal when youth is around!
Tuesday, October 10, 2023
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